WAYNE – Community members joined the economic development group in Wayne who is in charge of hosting the weekly chamber coffee event as they introduced their staff and talked about past and upcoming community happenings.
From Ekeko Blends located at 110 Main Street in Wayne, Wayne Area Economic Development was this week’s Friday morning chamber coffee host.
The group is celebrating 15 years of economic development since August of 2005 when Dave Simonsen assisted the merger between Wayne Industries, the Wayne Chamber of Commerce and the Wayne Main Street Program, according to Executive Director with WAED, Luke Virgil.
“Those three entities came together and we’ve progressed a lot in 15 years,” said Virgil. “But I’d say that we still have a lot more work to do as far as keeping this organization relevant and making sure that we provide a very good value to our busines members and to the community as a whole.”
WAED is mainly funded by membership fees, the City of Wayne and programming (example: Chicken Show).
Virgil added you can see around town all of the activities happening by just driving through Wayne.
“Scooter’s coming into town (and) everybody’s had a lot of excitement with that,” Virgil added. “They’re completely redoing that corner lot there. Back in September we got the final piece for ACE. They put the frontage on the building and we had the governor in town. It’s one of those good events you get to celebrate for the community.”
Virgil will next be working on more projects pertaining to commercial vacancies in the community of Wayne along with housing.
Plan on joining the Wayne State College Planetarium for the next Friday morning chamber coffee on October 23 at 10 a.m.